


The Bloudy Tenant: Truth and Peace

by Greekhoop



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Chaptered, Historical, Italy, Jerusalem, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multiple Pairings, Religion, Spain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:58:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greekhoop/pseuds/Greekhoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santino's vocation leads him to the New World, but the past will not be left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Tuscarawas County  
August, 1818_

It was only a few acres of fallow farmland: dry yellow clay, parched and unyielding after too many years of being planted with hemp. Santino had paid for it with Spanish gold, which had earned him something of a reputation amongst the locals. Even now, they did not attend his revivals.

His flock came instead from the townships and farms in the surrounding country; some even made the drive from Canton or Kendal, towns some miles to the north. After the sun went down, they came on by lantern or by moonlight, to the place that he had made for them. At first, they had assembled beneath the stars: ten or twenty families, who came more out of boredom, more out of a need to break the monotony of the frontier life, than out of a thirst for the Good Word. 

Santino had felt the heat of their suspicion; they thought he was too young looking, too delicate, too mannered, too European. They did not like the way he steepled his fingers and put back his head before he addressed them, as if he were stirred by some wind that they could not feel.

But then he spoke, and all those who heard agreed that he had been touched by the Spirit.

His congregation grew, and Santino had tents set up for them. He welcomed each newcomer with grace and politeness. He learned every name, shook every hand; blessed the children, blessed the sick; comforted the dying. Prayed in earnest, with such fervor that it bordered on violence, as if he could wrest the blessings of the Lord away by force.

Then, with those small nuisances out of the way, he ascended to his pulpit and began his real work.

Santino preached Hellfire as if he had seen it himself. He preached damnation as if personally acquainted with it. He told them of the rack, of the stake, of the cauldrons of boiling pitch, and of the spits where men were roasted alive. He told them of the wild beasts, and the virgins cast into brothels. Most nights, he merely pilfered from the lives of the saints that he had learned with such care in his youth. If any of his audience was astute enough to notice, they never said anything to him about it.

He worked them into a frenzy. The children sobbed, the women wept. It was a glorious and primal terror; fear on a scale he had never dreamed of before. He drove them to the brink, and he stopped just short of it.

“Brethren…” he whispered then, but it was a whisper that reached every ear. “How shall we be free of it?”

He lifted a hand to his lips, pressed it there as if lost in thought. He lifted his eyes to the starry heavens, and the hand slid away, seemingly forgotten, his fingertips trailing down the exquisite curve of his exposed throat, past his collar, to rest against his breast. And if he’d done it right, their hearts would beat faster. They would feel a thrill, and they would mistake it for ecstasy. Santino alone knew it for what it was.

With every eye riveted to him, he would begin to speak again. Softly now, as if it were only the distance across a pillow which separated them, he told them how to please the Lord. By the murder of the native people, by the enslavement of the Negro, by the subjugation of women, by the jealous guarding of worldly possessions. By greed, by wrath, by tyranny, by blindness, by weakness, by spite: all these were the ways to the Kingdom of God. As it was and ever shall be. Amen, Amen, Amen.

When he was through, Santino looked down at them tenderly. Never had he dreamed that souls could be taken in such numbers. And yet, the more he preached, the more they came before him. Begging him to turn their vices into virtues. He never once had need to invent a sin; they were delivered unto him in the hearts of his congregation, and he had only to pluck them out and give them voice.

He brought them by the scores to his Dark Master, but when Santino retired before dawn to the small cottage at the edge of his land, it was not to his Dark Master that he prayed.

On the wall above the bed he never used, there was a small wooden crucifix. Santino faced it as he said his devotions. Without altar or pentacle, without skull or candle, without any of the gaudy trappings of the Roman Catacombs, he offered up his thanks: simple, glad, and joyful: Lord, I thank thee for making me a vessel of your will. Whatever task my hand findeth, I shall do it with my might.

When the last star had faded, and the sky blushed with the rosy light of dawn, Santino lifted two of the boards out of the floor and went down into the cellar where he kept his coffin. He slept deeply, secure in the notion that he had earned his rest, and he had almost no dreams that he could remember upon waking.

Santino was never really happy unless he was engaged in some kind of labor. He had met many of their kind of the centuries who seemed content to idle away immortality amongst sensual pursuits. Because Santino was austere, serious, occasionally awkward, they assumed that he scorned them, but this was not the case. Several times over the centuries, Santino had attempted a more conventional life. He’d bought a sprawling isolated property, filled it was simpleminded servants, perhaps taken up some inoffensive artistic hobby to pass the hours. He even hunted conventionally; moving amidst the theaters and salons of the smart, safe middleclass.

It worked for a while – twenty years, fifty, maybe even as long as a hundred – but eventually there came a moment when he had to admit that he was bored to tears. Maybe it was his humble upbringing, or his strange gifts, or maybe it was just his simple, sensitive nature. Regardless of the cause, Santino knew that there was something that kept him always a little apart from the rest of their kind, always distant from them, as if he were trying to communicate with travelers from a strange land, knowing only the words of their language but not the subtle shades of meaning.

First he was lonely, then he despaired, and then he began to look for the signs that would lead him to his next vocation.

Even when he was mortal, Santino had known he had the Call. His earliest memories were of those things which existed beyond this world. He no longer remembered the faces of his family, yet he could still recall with perfect clarity the visions of the spirits that had distinguished his childhood. Every word, every command, ever shed tear, preserved for all eternity within him.

Never once did Santino doubt that it was the Lord who had brought him to America. As always, he was to sow temptation and tribulation, to drive men to evil, to make them forsaken and despised. God needed these things in His creation, just as he needed strong and resolute souls to overcome them. And never had Santino tried to question the wisdom in this, for he knew that his duty had been decided long ago, with the plucking of a certain fruit from a certain tree in a certain Garden.


	2. Chapter 2

_Santiago de Compostela  
February, 932_

The first Dark Ritual he performed took weeks to prepare. He stole most of the materials he needed: a bit of chalk, some candles, a sewing needle. He slid them into the folds of his cassock or held them inside his sleeve, clenched in his fist sometimes for hours until he could return to his cell and conceal them.

Santino was terrified that he would be uncovered, but it was terror, too, that drove him. For ten years he had been cloistered behind monastery walls, and he had grown from a boy into a young man amidst silence and shadows and self-denial. The spirits still came to him, but more infrequently. Even the beautiful voice of his Lady, which had once given him such joy, seemed now muted and sad.

Slowly, inevitably, he was dying, by such small and immeasurable degrees that when the end finally came he would not even know it for what it was. He would not even remember that he could fight against it.

Many times, he had begged the Lord to take mercy on him, pleaded with Him to take back His visions and prophecies, and always his prayers had gone unheeded. Then, he had turned to wickedness; surely God would not let an evil creature stay amongst His devoted flock. At night, his body rigid beneath the blankets, Santino lay in bed and whispered blasphemies to the ceiling, or else let his mind overflow with lustful thoughts. 

Still, the Lord made no answer, and Santino’s misery grew. He was not a brave man, and the monks had long ago purged any sense of rebellion he might have had, but his desperation gave him courage. He knew that there were books in the monastery that described the Sabbaths of the witches and the forbidden rituals that pleased the Enemy and his minions. Of these, Santino made careful study. Though in places the details were scarce, if Satan was half as hungry for souls as they said, surely he wouldn’t mind a few missteps.

On the night of the full moon, Santino returned to his cell after vespers and waited. The bell in the tower struck nine, then ten, then eleven. Santino trembled in every limb. He lifted his mattress and took out the supplies he had gathered.

He turned the crucifix that hung above his bed upside-down. He knelt on the floor and sketched a pentacle in chalk. Looking at it there, it seemed to him impossible that he would ever be able to go through with it. And even if he managed it, the Devil would not come. Surely he would be as deaf to Santino’s cries as God was…

Yet he could not undo what had already been done. With the needle, he pricked his finger and anointed the points of the pentacle with blood, then he set a candle at each cardinal direction. He felt himself beginning to swoon, and he bit the sleeve of his cassock and rallied himself.

“Father…” he whispered to the empty cell, “I know that this, too, is your will.”

Santino knelt in the center of the pentacle, and presently the bell struck midnight. He began to chant the Black Mass, lovingly learned during the hours of silent prayer in the chapel. Even then, he had only repeated the words in his thoughts. This was his first time saying them aloud, and at first he was hesitant, and he stumbled over the syllables. He couldn’t speak above a whisper for fear of alerting the Brothers in the adjacent cells, and he tried to make up for it by making his voice passionate and earnest, but it only came out sounding like a pained rasp.

He made such a mess of it that the bell struck one long before he had recited the Mass in its entirety. The sound startled him, and Santino jerked upright as if manipulated by strings. He felt a moment of disorienting uncertainty, unsure whether to push on, or start over, or abandon the plan entirely.

It was then that he realized he was no longer alone in the cell.

The feeling of eyes on his back was unmistakable. There was someone watching him - something watching him - and it had been there for some time. Santino’s heart went into his throat, and he gasped out, “Oh, God…” before he could stop himself. He got to his feet and willed himself to turn, but his body would not obey.

Slowly, then, slowly, a little bit at a time. He forced himself to move, though every muscle resisted, and every thought was a plea to run, to cry out, to do something to save himself.

But Santino knew that he was beyond saving now.

The creature was crouched in the corner of the cell where the shadows were deepest. Its body was obscured, like the hunch of a dead beast under a tarp, but Santino could see its eyes very clearly. They were human eyes, only brighter, and they seemed to glow faintly in the dim light.

At first, he thought it might be a spirit, but never had the spirits come to him when he was so lucid. No, this was no dream, no visitation. This was a demon. It was real, so real that its hunger was palpable.

“Oh, God…” Santino moaned again, and then the creature was upon him.

The arms that circled his waist were human arms, and the cheek that pressed up against his belonged to a human face. Even the voice that breathed in his ear: “Hush now, hush. Let’s not have any of that.” was a human voice. And yet never had anything seemed less human to him.

“I bet you didn’t think anything was going to happen, did you?” the demon whispered. His Spanish was immaculate; his accent only faint. When he moved, his clothing hissed, the sound of silk on silk, and his every gestured breathed a sweet oriental perfume. A scarf of indigo linen was wound around his face so that only his eyes were visible, and Santino was sure that some ghastly tooth-filled maw, some deformity too terrible for human eyes, was concealed beneath it.

There were tears on his cheeks, hot against his icy skin. “Mercy…” Santino whispered, knowing even as he said it that it was futile.

“That’s why I’ve come, little brother. To set you free.”

It reached for the scarf around its face, and only then, when confronted with the thought of what monstrous horror lay beneath, did Santino struggle. But no matter how he twisted, how he beat his fists against the demon’s face and chest, the grip around his waist was steadfast. Strong, too strong… Santino fought until he was exhausted, and only when he had fallen limp in the demon’s arms did he realize that the creature was watching him with some bemusement, but no anger.

The indigo scarf lay in loose folds around its neck. Its face was bare, and it was the face of a man. A beautiful man, with dark skin and straight dark hair. It was the face of one of the infidels who had invaded Iberia from the south, but at least it was a human face. Santino was so relieved that he began to weep.

“Don’t be afraid,” the demon murmured. When he slipped a hand beneath the hood of Santino’s cassock and pushed it back, Santino did not try to turn away.

His fingers were cold against Santino’s face, and the palms of his hands were completely smooth. He touched Santino’s cheek, his lips, the hair that bristled from his close-shaven head. “You’re so young…”

“Who are you?” Santino whispered.

“Am I not what you wished for?” He took Santino’s chin in his hand, turning his face up to catch the light. “What striking eyes. What a pretty mouth. I want to see the rest of you.”

Santino stared at him, uncomprehending. His lips stirred, but made no sound. He was aware of this, but even he could not say whether he was trying to pray, or to plead. The stranger hooked a finger in the collar of Santino’s cassock, and, with one sharp tug, he split it down the front. It was so fast Santino didn’t even know it had happened until he felt the cold air stirring against his belly and chest. The cassock slipped from his shoulders and fell to the floor, pooling at his feet.

He felt himself stroked by cool, delicate fingers. The stranger touched his shoulders, his chest. He flicked his thumb over Santino’s nipple so that it hardened, and Santino’s gasp became a moan as it escaped his mouth. A demon, he thought, a demon a demon… Just that single word, over and over again, as the stranger touched his stomach, and the little patch of dark hair that began below his navel.

His hand closed around the shaft of Santino’s cock, his thumb gliding over the tip. And by now, Santino was sobbing without tears, sobbing just as a way of taking in air. The stranger cupped his buttocks, spreading them so that his fingers might slip into the cleft between.

At last, Santino found his voice. He gave a single shrill, wordless cry; breathless and weak, but very loud in the quiet of his cell. A low growl built in the stranger’s chest. Santino could feel it rumbling upward from his depths, until at last it reached his lips and it became, not the sound of an angered beast, but of an amused man.

Laughing, the stranger asked him, “Why do you pray to the Devil, little brother?”

“God forgive me…” Santino gasped.

“You wanted him to take you out of this place. You wanted him to set you free.”

“Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

“And you swore that, if he did, you would serve him forevermore.”

“…hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come…”

There was a sharp pain at his throat, and Santino could speak no more. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears as his limbs went numb. He felt himself lifted, felt the wind stinging his naked body. There was a sickening drop that made his stomach lurch into his throat, and though he saw only blackness, he knew that the demon had swept him out the window and into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

_Al-Andalus  
December, 921_

Behold, he saw in Heaven an open door, and he heard a voice like many waters. It told him, look and see. And he saw, not what was to come, but that which had already been…

Santino’s first visitation had been at the age of eight. It was a winter morning and the sky was not yet light. He rose and dressed without a fire, his breath boiling in the air before him, and he took the clay vessel from beside the stove and went to haul water for the morning meal. The small flock of goats stirred sleepily from out of his path as he crossed the yard and went out through the front gate. 

He took four steps, raised his foot to take another, and then set it back down. The clay jug dropped, forgotten, from his hands. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, as if suddenly exposed to a great light.

A quarter of an hour later, his older sister came outside to do the milking and she found him still riveted to the spot. His body was rigid, but the muscles in his face were slack. His eyes were glassy and would not focus; his fingers were frozen from the cold.

She slapped him soundly, first on one cheek and then the other, and Santino came awake with a start. He blinked, and he saw the cottage with its mud walls, the scrawny goats, the holes in his clothes, the grayish frost on the grass. He beheld all these things as if for the first time, and he burst into terrified sobs.

His sister tried to question him, but he would not say what he had seen. More annoyed than disturbed, she cleaned his face with the hem of her dress and swore him to secrecy about the whole matter.

For six months, they acted as if nothing had happened. Santino had nearly forgotten the incident when the second vision came. This time, he was standing over the stove and stirring the embers. He turned a half-consumed piece of wood, and the unburned end burst into flame. The fire laid open a path for him, and Santino could see the ashes in the stove peeled back like a layer off an onion, and all the realms that lay beyond. It seemed a hundred corridors, a thousand chambers, appeared before him in the flickering of the flames, each containing a small and separate truth.

Santino’s teeth began to chatter uncontrollably, and a ribbon of blood appeared at his nose.

When he came to, he was stretched out on the earthen floor. Ghostly shadows hovered in his peripheral vision, and gradually took on the faces of his family. His mother’s expression was already braced against the pain that would consume her in the final weeks of her life.

Santino tried to sit up. They fell back before him, and he passed through them as if they had no more corporeality than spirits. He lurched over on his side and vomited.

What he remembered next was a blur. Soft sobs, a constant throbbing beat under the chanting prayers of the priest, a single note that droned through those unadorned Latin syllables that repeated over and over until he suffocated in the sound and pleaded, No more, please, please no more… 

_miserere nobis qui tollis peccata mundi dona nobis pacem sanctus dominus deus glorifica tua laudamus te benedicimus te et in terra pax hominibus miserere nobis_

But it wasn't the devil. It was no demon that had come to him and grabbed him by the throat and made him fall to the floor, made the blood run and his voice come in pained animal yelps. 

It was God. He could still remember Father Yves saying that. “It was God that touched you.”

Never had Santino known such happiness, or such fear. It seemed impossible, and yet he did not think even for a moment to doubt the priest’s words. His faith was great, for it was faith in the absence of everything else. He was the son of poor serfs, illiterate, hungry, cold, frail since birth; he was deserving of no blessings and no favors. But he knew that it was not his place to question the Lord’s perfect will.

Father Yves dispatched a letter to Rome describing the visions of the miracle child of Andalusia. Centuries later, Santino would search the Vatican library by candlelight until he found the very document. It would give him the unpleasant sensation of being reunited with a lost part of himself, and he would be so torn between the impulse to burn the letter on the spot and the desire to carry it with him and treasure it, that in the end he would merely put it back in its place and leave without looking back, never again to set foot on sacred ground.

All through the winter and the spring that followed they waited for a response. Santino’s visions came with more frequency now, a floodgate opening to unleash a torrent. God threw him down when he was on the hills with the goats, knocked him again and again to the cottage floor, dragged him from his bed when he tried to sleep. Sometimes, he was taken suddenly, violently, and when he awoke his clothes were soaked in sweat and his limbs were bruised from thrashing. More often, though, he simply drifted away, slipping out of one reality and into another, with the same ease that once might pass from land into water.

The trances lasted minutes, or hours, though when he came out of one it was never with any idea of time having passed. Santino dutifully recounted every vision to his father confessor. Frequently, he saw orbs of colored light that spun and danced before his eyes. He watched the lives of the saints and the Passion unfolded before his eyes. He heard a woman’s voice that seemed to come not from any human throat, but from the very air itself. A voice so sweet, so pure, and yet Santino could not understand a word it said. She seemed to speak a language like none he had ever heard, and sometimes too fast, or too low… It seemed so unfair, so horribly unfair.

“Father,” Santino said. “What must I do to please the Lord?”

“Purify your soul. Be ever diligent at your prayers. The truth will become clear in time.”

More than diligent, Santino was fanatical. He would kneel for hours with his hands clasped so tightly to his breast that his knuckles showed white, or he would hold his arms outstretched, in the attitude of the cross until he trembled all over and his breath came in sobbing gasps. Still, he could make no sense out of the words of his Lady, though she did come often when he lay exhausted upon the floor after he had prayed, and she spoke to him in soft, conciliatory tones.

Sometime after the first of the year, his mother died. She had been sick a long time then, longer than any of them had thought, and when the time finally came she went almost without a fight. She only wept a little, softly, when the pain in her belly was very bad. Afterwards, Santino saw her spirit about the house for a time, a cold and dingy gray light, fainter than the others, keeping mostly to the corners. In time, she faded, and then she was gone.

Santino dutifully reported all of this, and when he was through he looked up into Father Yves’ face, as if seeing it for the first time. He didn’t look kind, as Santino had once imagined all priests ought to look, nor stern as he had thought many must. He seemed only harried, administrative; a small, thin, stooped man with failing eyes, moving quickly into middle age.

“I miss her,” Santino said.

This seemed to startle the priest, even to annoy him. “My child, you must not think on such earthly matters. Keep your thoughts always attuned to the Heavenly Sphere.”

With the coming of the warm weather, there came also, at last, a letter from Rome with instructions to induct the young mystic into a religious order at once, so that his gifts might not be lost with his coming of age and his visions might be recorded and interpreted properly. There was little resistance from his family. The message was amended with the seal of the Pope, and to question it would be tantamount to the vilest heresy. Besides, Santino was the youngest of nine children, and his delicate constitution had always been a burden.

In the spring, Father Yves took him north to the Christian land of Galicia. Here was the last outpost in Iberia that had withstood the advance of the infidel armies from Asia, the perfect place for a young life to be consecrated, a young soul to be polished until, like a pearl, it gleamed.

Father Yves left him there, within the walls of the Order of Saint Jerome, where not a gesture, not a thought, not a word was ever wasted, and Santino’s memories of a life outside soon faded to the papery consistency of dreams. 

They venerated him there. Every one of his visions was a cause for celebration and joyful thanksgiving. He would come to, stretched out on the stone floor where he had fallen, or in his bed where they carried him when the trances were long, the Holy Fathers gathered around him, watching him expectantly, hardly daring even to breathe. And Santino felt his sway over them; he felt the power he had, without even knowing by what name he should call it.

In a soft voice, he asked for water. Not because he was thirsty, but because it meant he could hold on to the moment a little longer. After he had drunk at length, he paused, feeling the silence fill with meaning, feeling their adoration. Only then did he speak of what he had seen, whatever saints or angels or enduring Mysteries he had glimpsed when the veil was torn away.

Then, too quickly, the moment passed. He was the vessel of the Lord no longer; he had become a mortal boy once more. A boy, the Fathers were quick to remind him, who was sinfully idle while there was work to be done.

Santino was fourteen when he was inducted into the Order. His curls were shorn, his clothes replaced by sackcloth, his lips sewn shut by the vow of silence. 

The years passed, and he no longer dared hope for any respite, save the one which would come with death.

***

Santino awoke to the smell of saffron and cardamom, the caress of silk against his cheek. His body ached in every limb, and yet it was the not-unpleasant ache that came when some difficult labor was complete. Strangest of all, there was the weight of arms around him, the sensation of being held. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew that he was safe here, even before the voice close to his ear said, “Open your eyes, little brother. I won’t hurt you.”

A hand stroked his jaw, and Santino recognized the uncommon smoothness of the skin, only it was not cold as it had been. The fingers that grazed his lips, his cheeks, his throat, were pleasantly warm, the texture of some fine heavy cloth.

Santino’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked up into the face of his savior. A fine face, but strange – exotic, as they would say in the centuries to come – with slanted dark eyes, full lips, and an upturned nose. A lock of glossy blue-black hair escaped from the scarf he wore around his head.

“You’re a demon, aren’t you?” Santino whispered.

The stranger smiled, not unpleasantly. “Yes. I am.”


	4. Chapter 4

Slowly, with utmost care, Santino sat up and took account of his surroundings. The demon made no attempt to restrain him or to follow him when he moved. His arms slid away from Santino’s waist in a murmur of fine silk.

The lamps were all turned low. Countless golden candelabras were ensconced in every wall, but many were unlit and in others only one taper burned. Still, Santino could see that they were in a private room of some sort – perhaps a bedchamber, though there was no bed – and that it was lavishly furnished. The floors were solid marble, the ceilings studded with tiles of bright blue and burnt orange. The walls were decorated with mosaics of strange battles and gods that he did not recognize. The narrow, arched windows were hung with red velvet curtains, which had been flung open to admit the light of the full moon.

Everywhere were red embroidered rugs, rich tapestries, couches piled high with cushions, sandalwood tables with legs carved to look like lions, altars where coils of incense burned. In spite of all this, the room seemed curiously empty, curiously sterile. It was all a show, Santino realized. No one actually lived here.

He turned back to look at the demon, still reclining against a pile of pillows. The candlelight cast unsettling shadows over his face and his expression was hard to read. He had changed out of the simple black robes he had been wearing earlier, into a heavy emerald green tunic, belted at the hips with gold brocade, and beneath that he wore a pair of loose trousers of the same green silk. It was not the costume of a Saracen; in fact, it was like no clothes Santino had ever seen before.

Santino wrapped his arms around himself as if gripped by a sudden chill. His own clothes had not been replaced by such finery; he was as naked as he had been when the demon took him out of the monastery. What would they think in the morning, he wondered. When they opened his cell and found only a torn cassock, lying in the center of a bloodstained pentacle on the floor. He knew exactly what they would think, and they would not be wrong. But they wouldn’t be entirely right, either.

He reached for the silk coverlet to pull around himself, and at last the demon stirred, lifting himself enough to still Santino’s hand. 

“You’ve never been naked in front of a man before.”

“No, never.”

“Are you afraid that it’s a sin?” The demon was indulgent, amused, as if listening to the fancies of a young, imaginative child.

“I’m just cold,” Santino said.

The demon’s smile deepened momentarily into one of tenderness, and he took the coverlet, drawing it up around Santino’s shoulders. “It’s such a shame to cover this lovely skin with sackcloth.”

“It wasn’t my choice. They made me do it.”

“Yes, they locked you away, like a maiden in a fairy tale. But I came for you when you called me, did I not?”

“You did,” Santino said quietly. “Now, tell me what you wish of me. I knew what would happen when I called on the Enemy. I am your slave.”

He felt tears stinging his eyes, and he looked away quickly, lest the demon take offense. A hand touched the back of his neck; the demon stroked the tip of his thumb along the thick blue vein in the side of Santino’s throat.

“Such a sad, frightened little voice,” he mused. “Crying out into the abyss, into the infinite darkness and silence. No one was listening to your prayers, and yet I heard them. That alone ought to count as a miracle. Of all the places to be, on all the nights in all of history, I happened to be passing by your window on this one. I came closer; I had to see you. Perhaps I wanted your blood, perhaps I only wanted to be near you a while… But then I looked into your soul, and I saw how bravely you fought, though you yourself were your only opponent. How stirring is the human heart in conflict with itself. It’s the only battle that really counts. All else are but defeats where nothing of value is lost, or victories without spoils.”

Santino felt his head lifted as if by invisible hands, his face turned so he looked upon the demon once more. There were tears on his cheeks, but he did not wipe them away. “What are you saying?”

“This is your home now, little brother. I will give you all you desire, all the life you were denied in the monastery.”

“Why do this for me? I don’t understand…”

“Because I love you.”

Santino laughed, a thin anxious sound. He had lost his initial fear of this beautiful creature some time ago, but that declaration frightened him anew. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know all I need to. Although, I suppose your name would be nice.”

“It’s Brother Sebastian.”

The demon shook his head. “Not that name. Forget all you know about the monastery. Tell me your true name; what they called you before.”

“I’m... Santino.”

“You may call me Saydan-Ayt. Though I’m not without my pseudonyms. I, too, have an older name.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a long story,” Saydan-Ayt said, and he seemed wryly amused. “Alas, we have so little moonlight left. You must be hungry, and very weary. Eat, and rest yourself. If you awake before nightfall tomorrow, tell the servants what you desire and they’ll help you.”

“Where are you going?”

“Until the morrow, I must leave you.” Then, as if sensing Santino’s hesitation, he drew him into his arms. “Just like a fairy tale, there are rules.”

Santino was pliant in his grip, beneath his hands, under the burning kiss that Saydan-Ayt pressed to his lips. He could feel the promise of his fangs concealed behind it, but even that did not surprise or worry him overmuch. For he was delivered, he was free, and very little would ever be able to astonish him now.

***

It seemed impossible that he would be able to rest at all that night, but he lay down on the divan and fell almost at once into a deep and profound sleep. A spirit descended then, and swept through all the halls of Saydan-Ayt’s palace, tearing up the marble and dashing the mosaics to ruins. Beneath, there was only damp, molding stone.

The Persian carpets, the mirrors of hammered silver and bronze, the gold, the lapis lazuli, the lavish furniture, the sunken baths, the bluish coils of incense smoke; all these things were swept away, and in their places rose rot and rats, the smell of decay, and the soft sighing that old bones made when they crumbled to dust.

Santino blinked, and the new illusion closed over the old. The sound of it snapping into place was like a coin ringing in an empty coffer. No one said anything aloud – no one dared – but he could hear the murmuring of their thoughts. He dropped off more and more often these days, lapsing into musings, or dreams, or trances that even the most gifted amongst them could not see when they looked into his mind.

They didn’t like it, but they weren’t prepared to move against him yet. He still had time to get things under control.

He wiped at his nose. When he pulled his hand back he half expected and half hoped to see blood on his fingertips, but he knew better. It had been no vision that had swept him off, no divine message for his ears of clay. It had been his memories, hidden away for too long, and scratching to be let out.

A bundle of filthy rags lay heaped at Santino’s feet. It stirred a little, and spoke.

“Dark Master,” it said insistently.

“Yes, Amadeo,” Santino replied, and a face appeared from within the creases of old and torn clothes. “You may rise.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-con, not very graphic.

_San Sebastiano fuori le mura  
October, 1540_

“Baptized in the purifying flames of Satan.” Santino drew the waif up with his hand, making him stand straight, running his eyes curiously over the sturdy shoulders, the trembling limbs beneath torn tunic, the tattered stockings. He ran his thumb over Amadeo's cheek, brushing at the soot that clung to his pallid cheek. “Reborn in the blackness of death. That was the vision that came to me in the year of the plague. In the year of my rebirth. In the year of the rebirth of our kind.” 

“Sir...” 

“Shh.” Santino pressed a finger against those full lips. So beguiling. It was easy to see what the heretic had seen in him. “Satan called me then, as he calls you now. Do you hear it? Do you hear His sweet voice, His strong command? God's commandments are ten, but Satan’s command is but one: Despair.”

The congregation, the brethren of the night, they murmured amongst themselves, their voices a rising wave and he rose himself with it, above it. 

“Reborn! You have been baptized, you have been blessed by the Dark Powers that made us all. And now, I give you a new meaning, a resurrection. No longer will you love God, Amadeo, you will love all that opposes God. Armand, I call you. A soldier in the Devil's Army, a man of the sword who will come down on the light of man like the black flaming vengeance of a fallen archangel!”

Alessandra let out a scream and collapsed to the stone floor. She rolled in the dust like a beast, tearing her hair, gouging her eyes with her nails, the Ecstasy upon her. Armand flinched, disgusted but not frightened. Since his initial terror had faded, he had felt almost no fear of them at all. His heart was consumed by a hate so hot, so pure, that it left no place for anything else. Santino was relieved. They needed hate down here; there was nothing else to keep them warm.

“Behold!” Santino cried. “He comes among us.”

All around him, the animal howls, the smell of blood as flesh was rent and tongues chewed to ribbons. Armand did not look at them. He did not turn for even a moment from Santino’s face. His eyes were dry, his upper lip drawn back to show his teeth. He was beautiful and terrible and tender, and at that moment Santino felt such an overwhelming love for him that he scarce could hold it in. This treasure, this jewel, that he had rescued from the jaws of decadence. Never again would they call him beloved, never again would they admire him. He would rot down here; he would become hideous to behold.

Santino put an arm around Armand’s waist and drew him close. His clothing gave off the odor of damp velvet and mildew. Even now, his skin was beginning to take on the waxen whiteness of a subterranean creature. “You must be famished,” Santino whispered to him, offering his wrist to Armand’s lips.

His fingernails were black, and grease was caked into the creases on his palm. A fine layer of dust had settled on his skin as if on a neglected statue. Armand tensed, hesitated, and finally relented. He fell upon Santino’s wrist and gashed it open with his fangs. The pain was sudden, exquisite, yet all too brief. The anesthetic in Armand’s saliva quickly numbed him from fingertips to elbow. 

He let Armand drink his fill. Every pull from his thirsty throat was like the plucking of a wire that pierced Santino’s heart. He could feel the darting pressure of Armand’s tongue, flicking over the wound to keep it from closing.

At last, he eased Armand back. The boy’s face had fleshed out; his cheeks had regained their blush. But his eyes were still full of silent accusations, loathing, curses.

“Ah, you are as fire reflected in water,” Santino murmured.

Armand made no reply, save in his mind the same words repeated over and over: One day, I will be strong enough to kill him. One day…

Santino smiled. “Come. I have made a place for you.”

He led Armand past the battered and bleeding congregation. They lay exhausted now in the dirt on the floor of the catacombs, panting for breath. Occasionally, one of them would twitch and let out a yelp, but the Spirit was gone now from this place. Santino walked straight ahead, stepping over or toeing aside the prostrate bodies that were in his path, but Armand picked his route more carefully, weaving amongst them so that he was always a little out of reach of their hands.

Unmarked and unlit, the corridor Santino led him down would have been nearly invisible to mortal eyes, but Santino and Armand navigated it easily. Forgotten bones crunched under their feet as they walked, and rats and insects made way for them. They descended a flight of stone steps to the lower level, and made three turns in rapid succession. Santino could hear Armand’s breath quicken as they moved deeper into the catacombs, further from the light. One of the cubicula had been furnished with a coffin of unfinished boards. Next to the door was heaped a pyramid of skulls to serve as a road sign.

“This is where you’ll sleep,” Santino said.

Armand looked up at him. “Alone?”

“Yes. Alone.” He could not say whether the prospect relieved or frightened the boy. Of course, he wasn’t used to it; the heretic Marius had coddled him so… But Santino had always been sure to grant his flock one indulgence, and that was their solitude.

Armand went inside ahead of him. He ran his hand over the lid of the coffin. It was so rough that some of the planks hadn’t even been stripped of their bark, and the seams bristled with bent nails. The back wall of the cubiculum was decorated with a mural, faded and caked by many years of dust and cobwebs, but well preserved. 

“Why do they do such horrible things?” Armand said quietly.

“It’s how we’ve always worshipped. Their passions are no less than yours just because they live here instead of amongst mortal splendors.”

“You’re all making fools of yourselves.”

Santino laughed, as dry and hollow as a cough. “I’m glad the blood has revived your spirits.”

Armand's soft brown eyes burned with revulsion, but he looked away quickly beneath Santino’s unrelenting gaze. Santino stepped forward, and Armand backed away from him. The chamber was so small he had to press himself up against the limestone wall to keep from touching the hem of Santino’s clothes.

“I know you still hope, Armand,” Santino said. “You must give it up. God has forsaken you. The moment you became one of us, you became hateful in His sight. Marius may have comforted you, may have told you that there is no sin in killing those who do evil, but he lied to you.”

“Don’t talk to me about him.”

“It’s because he saved you,” Santino said. “You had never been lower than you were, but then he came and lifted you out of the darkness. That’s why you’ll always love him, as long as you live.”

“Yes, I love him. What would you know about it, though? You don’t love anything except for your stupid rituals, and being miserable and lonely and covered in filth.”

Santino’s expression softened into a smile. He’d been told as much before, but rarely was the messenger so charming and guileless. “Perhaps I know more than you think.”

He passed a hand over the fresco on the back wall, wiping away an accumulation of dust. The red paint was still very vivid. The mural was simple, more a sketch than a true painting. It lacked the elegance and depth of modern works, though the subject was a familiar one: Sebastian the Martyr, his body contorted and bristling with arrows, his head thrown back in an agony so pure it was nearly ecstasy.

Armand gasped, and, when he thought Santino was not watching, crossed himself.

“It’s not everyone that gets to be martyred twice,” Santino said. He looked back at Armand. “Marius may yet live, you know. He’s so old, I think perhaps even he doesn’t know any more how strong he really is.”

Armand lowered his eyes. It seemed that for an instant, tears quivered on his lashes. Or was it only an illusion? “Don’t tell me not to hope, and then say something like that. You’re only mocking me…”

“I said you should never hope for reprieve.”

“But if Marius is alive, he’ll come and get me. He’ll make you sorry.”

“The Ancient Ones never come down here, though. They all know we’re here, and they have no cause to fear us. We are many, but we are so weak compared to them… And yet, they keep their distance. They come neither to destroy, nor to reclaim.”

“Marius is different.”

Santino felt his heart seized by bitterness, as if an iron fist had closed around it. He did not fear any reprisal that Marius might visit upon them, not half so much as he dreaded that he might come at all. Armand might be right; he might be different. He might be willing to dirty he hands a little for the sake of his little one; to pull him out of here and into the harsh light of the human world, to wash off all the muck and tell him that it was no sin what they were. They had no duty to Satan, or God, or anyone else.

He might be willing to do all the things that Saydan-Ayt hadn’t.

It was the very reason he had plunged into the fire after Armand, scorching his hands and face, singeing his hair as he dragged him out. It was not Armand’s beauty, or his sweetness, or his innocence, as pure and radiant as the light of the sun, that had spurred Santino, half-crazed, into the flames. He had done it because he needed to see what would happen. For if Marius came, then there was still hope. If he did not, Santino would at least know with certainty that he had been forsaken.

He didn’t know what he would do then. For all his devotion to their gospel, he knew that there were many times that only the hope of deliverance had sustained him. If Saydan-Ayt had been willing to rescue him once from the prison his visions had made for him, then why not again? 

Sometimes, in his dreams, Santino still saw his old maker, wrapped from head to toe in black robes, his hair hidden beneath a veil. He lifted Santino so easily, as if he weighed no more than a phantom of himself, and carried him away to a palace where every surface was gold. Then, that burning kiss, first on the lids of Santino’s dazzled eyes, then his lips, his throat… Saydan-Ayt drew back, wrinkling his nose, but when he spoke his voice was not without affection: “Go get cleaned up. You smell like a charnel house.” And Santino went, though he knew the dream would not last long without Saydan-Ayt to hold it at the center.

He awoke in his coffin alone, or with a mouse nosing in his hair, or a serpent slithering amongst the tatters of his cloak, or a cockroach slowly ascending his cheek; and he wept bitterly, until his flock called for him and he could wait no longer to rise.  
Santino turned. There must have been something in his eyes that alerted him, for Armand shied away, edging towards the door. Santino caught him around the wrist before he could go far.

“Let me go!” Armand snapped. “I’m already your slave. Must you—“

He said no more. Santino had pulled him close and buried his protests in a bruising kiss.

Armand went rigid in his grip. There was the whisper of that same sweet terror that had seized him in the moment they had cast him into the fire. Santino knew of the brothel, but until now it had not been of any particular concern to him. Armand had been young then, and his life since had been good. The trauma had not scarred too deeply, and in fact months, sometimes years, would go by when Armand did not remember it at all.

He remembered now, though. Trapped in the constricting circle of Santino’s arms, he recalled everything, and he began to tremble. “You can’t… You’re dead.”

Santino bent to kiss him again, and Armand jerked his face away. He landed an openhanded blow on Santino’s cheek, hard enough to make his ears ring and a bead of blood appear in the corner of his mouth. No, Armand was not lacking in strength, not with Marius’ blood in his veins. In time, he would realize all he was capable of, but now was too soon. Santino swept him off his feet, casting him down on his back on the lid of the coffin.

“No!” Armand yelped. He tried to crawl away, but Santino was already over him, pinning his wrists to the boards.

“Hush,” he whispered.

“No… please, no…”

“Thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks…”

Armand’s cries faded into sobs, growing softer and softer, as if they came each time from a greater distance. Santino tore open the front of Armand’s tunic, scattering silver buttons and tiny glimmering beads in all directions. They rang like rain as they showered to the floor of the chamber.

“…set me as a seal upon thine heart; for love is strong as death.”

And then, Santino laid him open with a flick of his wrist, and made bare all of his sweet and tender secrets.

***

He had felt the familiar presence blow in with his congregation. Santino was behind the big tent that served as a chapel, and his head snapped up as if he had heard his name called on a crowded street.

No, there was no mistaking it, though it had been years – centuries - since they had last seen each other.

He kept his distance. Santino could hear his familiar steps, circling the perimeter of the tent, perhaps looking for a dark place to hide. He would have a hard time of it; they’d had electric lights since last summer, and the inside of the chapel was lit up like day.

In time, Santino thought, in time. But when he stepped out before his flock, he was shaken by the feeling of those dark eyes watching him. They were not accusing, not angry, only a little curious and somehow sad. And again and again, Santino found himself back in that little chamber in the catacombs, at that moment when his love – his beautiful and monstrous love – had overflowed.

He was distracted, and so he fell back on a familiar sermon: The Four Horsemen. Santino could have preached it in his sleep, and he knew he did it justice. All the same, he regretted not being able to give his visitor something special.

It was some hours later that he withdrew, leaving his exhausted flock full of fresh fire and brimstone. He went out behind the tent where the many trailers that serviced his ministry were parked, and he found a place where it was dark and he was out of sight. He waited, one heartbeat, two, and then he wasn’t alone any longer.

“I didn’t think you’d be the first,” Santino said.

Armand coalesced out of the shadows cast by the cabs of two looming Chevrolets. “Neither did I.”


	6. Chapter 6

_Alhambra, Colorado  
June, 1928_

Back in the canvas chapel, the orchestra was playing _May the Circle be Unbroken_. A swell of brass, a twinkling of piano, the sweet harmonies of the choir mixing with the imperfect ones of the congregation. If they had been inside, it would have been cacophonous, an assault to their too-sensitive ears, but out here it wasn't so bad.

Santino had thirty full-time musicians working under him. In addition to the orchestra and choir, there was a secondary bluegrass quartet, an organist, soloists. Then there were the guest preachers: recovering addicts and ex-prostitutes with popular sermons that spared none of the lurid details of their lives before coming to Christ. There was a doctor from Minnesota who gave a lecture about the contradictions inherent in the Theory of Evolution. There were the faith healers, the snake handlers, the speakers of tongues. There was Santino’s manager, his booking agent, his lawyers and his publicists. There were two hired-gun journalists who planted flattering articles about his ministry in _The New Yorker_ and _Harper’s_. There was the army of drivers, carpenters, electricians, and mechanics. Out of work actors to cry out at crucial moments, “I can walk!” or “Praise the Lord, I can see again!”. There were the bodyguards, whose only job was to make sure that Santino was not disturbed between the hours of sunrise and sunset, for that was when he communed with the Lord.

There was the fleet of trucks to be maintained, the pile of bills to pay, the sack of mail to be answered… And, oh Lord, if he could keep all of this in order, then why not the simple things, the machinations of his heart? 

In truth, he was not surprised to see Armand here. He knew that there was a compulsion inherent in all of them to seek out the old and familiar. To salvage the antiques of the past, dust them off and plaster the cracks, set them on display and pretend they were as good as new. He was not surprised that Armand had come; only that he had somehow become so much more imperious, more fragile, more human, and more grotesque than Santino remembered

“I didn’t really believe it when I heard,” Armand said. “There was a rumor that one of our kind was beating his gums up and down the Bible Belt. They said all the mortals were having kittens for his line of bull.”

“…pardon me?”

“I felt like a poor little bunny in there tonight. I didn’t know what to think. You really had them breezed on the baloney bus.”  
Santino opened his mouth, then closed it again immediately. Armand was looking at him expectantly, and at last he managed, “Let’s… let’s speak Latin. I don’t want anyone to overhear.”

“If you like.”

Which left Santino right back where he had started, looking down at this artifact of another time, another life. Armand was dressed in tweed, and there was a white straw hat clutched in his hand. Santino couldn’t imagine his appearance had gone over well inside with his pious and simple flock, but Armand was more than capable of taking care of himself.

As for Santino, he knew what his people wanted; and, as with the oversized band and the sideshow of holy freaks, he did not hesitate to give it to them. His vestments for the pulpit were luxurious robes of purple, crimson, and silver, but underneath he wore a simple mail order black suit and a starched shirt. Plain, as he was, a little stiff, and certainly a vast improvement of the tattered tunic and leggings that he had worn until they rotted in the catacombs of Rome.

"Though verily," Armand continued blithely, switching to Italian, "Latin will make them think thou art a most foul and idolatrous papist, would it not?" Armand spoke in the archaic Italian of so many centuries ago, and it had been so long since Santino had heard it that it sounded stilted to his ear. He felt for the buttons of his vestments as though it was suddenly too hot, and he freed himself from it, leaving it crumpled on a wooden crate.

"Truly. Not that anyone would know. None but sophisticated schoolboys know Latin anymore." He laughed, without humor. And then they were left looking at each other in silence with a strange familiarity that only the passing of hundreds of years could have given them. 

"As alluring as ever. The lovely Amadeo." Santino tilted his head a little, admiring Armand in the glare of the electric lights. His hair was slick and pomaded, and parted at the side in that modern style… Was it ever so fiery red in the depths of the hell they had created for themselves?

"As inappropriate as ever, Santino Magnus." Armand smiled a little. "Did you know that then, I could not appreciate your importance in our world? You were as to us the pope of our kind." He laughed, a bright sound. "You ought to have taken a name unto yourself. Impius the First." 

"Those days are over. But His call is not." Santino raised his finger out of habit, and then lowered it to point at the ground. "His work continues in this world."

"As you continue." He looked at Santino curiously, and Santino could feel his thoughts, just barely; he was wondering if Santino had ever slept, had ever gone to the earth.

"No. Did you?" Armand seemed shocked that his private musings had been intruded upon. But it didn't take power to hear him, only subtlety.

“I suppose you might say I found a calling of my own,” Armand replied.

Santino could not imagine what could have possibly seduced this unconquerable beauty, what could have ultimately convinced that proud heart to surrender. He knew Armand would tell him all in time; he had never liked to be overburdened with secrets. Let him decide the moment, though. Let him tease awhile, prolonging the pleasure of the unveiling.

Back inside, Eugenia, his star soprano, was singing _Amazing Grace_. The plates would be circulating through the audience by now, up and down the rows. A dime here, a quarter there. Sometimes more; occasionally there was a twenty, or even a fifty, tucked way down deep in one of the coffers. Santino would slip it to Eugenia, or to the new seamstress they’d brought on to look after the choir robes, or to the handsome Mulatto boy who played piano in the orchestra. He’d tell them to buy something nice with it. They knew it was wrong, but they took it anyway. No hesitation in those dear consecrated hearts.

Santino’s tastes were still simple. Give him a place to be alone and a coffin to rest his head, and he could imagine nothing else that he might want. He paid for all the expenses of the church, and there was still money left over. There had been a time when he’d given it all to the Salvation Army to sort out, but these days he oversaw more and more of its investment personally. An orphanage in Indiana, a hospital down in Texas, a scholarship for the sons of Nebraska sharecroppers. It did not trouble his conscience to do good sometimes, for Santino had never seen sin and salvation as a series of weights and measures.

Armand was looking at him expectantly, perhaps wondering if he was listening to the faraway music. In truth, Santino was only listening for his cue.

“I have to go back,” he said. “There is still work to be done.”

“This must be that Protestant work ethic I’ve heard so much about.” Armand had lapsed back into English so easily that he seemed almost unaware of it. He, who had always spoken so highly of the elegiac beauty of the old church Latin… He had changed a lot.

“I’d like to see you later.”

“I guess I could manage to stick around a bit. Don’t be a stranger.”

Then, for an instant, the air seemed to still hold the shape of his body, though he was no longer there. Changed, Santino thought as started back. Changed so much that perhaps there was little left of the boy that he had known, save for that angelic face. But it was enough; he knew already that it was enough. 

As for himself, Santino could not say what Armand saw when he looked at him. The same dreary old dogmatist, he supposed, less a few decades of accumulated dirt. It was fine. Let them all swing around him like planets in orbit. Let him be the unchanging center for as long as God gave him strength.

Santino came around the front of the tent just as the congregation began to file out, and gave himself over to the vigorous handshakes of the men, the “Bless you, Brother”-s of the women. But all the while he could feel Armand watching him. He was back in the darkness beyond the glare of the electric lights, just out of sight, and he was as impatient as a mortal. Every once in a while, he let Santino hear him move, or he darted in just close enough that the shadows surrendered the shape of him.

Caught in Armand’s inescapable gravity, Santino let himself be lured. Soon enough, the last of the congregation had dispersed, and Santino felt almost at once that small, insistent presence beside him.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Famished,” Armand said.

Santino led him out to the field where the cars were parked. One of the old Fords leaned heavily on two flat tires. A young man in threadbare Sunday best was crouched down by the wheel well, trying to patch the rear one. A girl of eighteen or nineteen stood behind him, holding the flashlight.

They were lonely, luckless, unafraid. The service had made them melancholy for reasons they could not explain, and so they were quiet now. Later, they would talk in generalities, about how nice the music was, how lovely all the banners and robes. But no, this would not come to pass.

Santino started forward, but Armand did not follow.

“Them?” he whispered.

“He hits her when he’s drunk,” Santino said. “Last summer, she had a baby that had a withered arm, and she put a pillow over its face and suffocated it in the cradle.”

And Armand, naive as he was, believed every word. Though it seemed at the very end, right before he let the girl’s body fall, he suspected something was amiss. Even after all these years, it meant a lot to him to think that he only killed the wicked and unredeemed, as if he had been given immortality so that he might act as the hand of justice upon the land.

Santino had no patience for his endless morality plays, enacted night after night to an unreceptive audience. It was but vanity, and, worse still, a weakness of character. For it was given to none to know the hour that the Lord would come. Heaven and Earth might pass away, but this truth would not.

They looked at each other over the crumpled corpses, and Armand took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed delicately at his lips. He passed it to Santino, who clutched it tight in his fist. He leaned forward over the bodies, and for a moment it seemed that Armand would be merciful. Santino set a hand on his hip; their lips so close… But at the last second, Armand turned his face away and held up a hand to fend him off.

“Sorry, bank’s closed,” he murmured, his voice so colorless and weary that even that gaudy modern slang seemed drained of life.

Santino released him, embarrassed by his own presumptuousness. He lifted the corpses of the young couple, slinging them over his shoulder with graceful, practiced ease. They were both so dry that they didn’t even leave spots of blood on his suit.

“Come,” he said. “I want to be away from this place for a while.”

Armand followed him out onto the blue prairie. Orion was directly overhead, Cygnet was just rising; the moon was three quarters and bathed the country in a light so bright that they could make out each individual blade of grass, each tiny flower closed against the night. About a mile out from camp, Santino dumped the bodies in a cow pond and watched them sink below the black water. Then he climbed the rolling hill to the east, and he sat down at the crest of it. Armand crouched beside him, worried about the grass staining his nice new clothes.

“Tell me everything,” Santino said at last. “I want to know everywhere you’ve been.”

Armand shrugged. “Back east, mostly. There are a couple of covens in New York now, and one in Boston. One is just starting up in Chicago. They’re all so young. Anything more than a hundred years old impresses them. You should see some of the buildings they call historical.”

He laughed, without much humor. 

“They kept saying that there was an Ancient One out west. And it sounded like you, but I couldn’t believe…” He looked up at Santino. “I guess a lot of time has passed, hasn’t it?”

Santino didn’t answer right away; he was watching the pond at the foot of the hill. A herd of mirror-eyed antelope were nosing out of the tall grass to drink.

“There was someone,” Armand went on. “But now there’s not. I followed him all the way here, and I want to go back to Paris. But I can’t, because if I left now it would be like admitting that I did all of it for him. I don’t want him to think that. Not that he’d even notice…”

He plucked a blade of wheatgrass, and twirled it between his fingers so the outer sheathe peeled away. “I suppose that’s all, really.”

Santino glanced over at him. A tentative, hopeful smile hung precariously from Armand’s lips. He was unaccustomed to looking happy, or disarming, and Santino supposed only he alone was to blame for that.

“Tell me about him,” he said at last, and Armand’s smile quivered but hung on. 

He sat down then, and shifted closer to Santino’s side. He was still spinning the blade of grass between his fingers, and with each turn it exhaled a sweet and earthy smell. Santino put an arm around him, and Armand let himself be drawn in. He didn’t rest his head on Santino’s shoulder, but his hair brushed against it, as if at any moment he might be persuaded to relent.

He never did, though they stayed like that for the rest of the night, talking in hushed tones about a lot of things that barely mattered, and a few that mattered a great deal. Orion had set a long time ago, and Cygnet was in decline. The eastern horizon was beginning to grow light.

“You should stay with me,” Santino said. “Just for the day.”

Armand stood up, brushed off his suit, and then offered Santino a hand. “I suppose you’re right. I was thinking about heading back east right away, but now I don’t know. I might go on to California.”

“You’ll like it there. The climate will agree with you.”

“Do you think so? I suppose you’ll find your way there sooner or later. What are you going to do when you run out of West?”

“That’s a silly question.”

“Silly because you know the answer, or because you don’t?”

Santino made no reply. He began to walk back toward the camp. All was dark and silent now; all was in repose. He paused as they reached the ring of tire tracks that made a perimeter, and he touched Armand’s hand to still him.

“What are you thinking?” Armand said, with the directness that only telepaths had. “What do you want to ask me?”

“You’ve met a lot of our kind over the years, haven’t you?”

“Sure, a few.”

“Then I wonder if you might know one in particular?”

“What’s his name?”

Armand was watching him curiously, but without malice or mistrust. Santino knew how impossible it was, that the demon, the liar, the creature of infinite names might still answer to the one Santino had called him all those centuries ago. And yet he asked all the same.

Something flickered behind Armand’s eyes. For a moment, it seemed like it might be recognition, but then he only shook his head. “Sorry. I’ve never heard of him.”

Santino let out his breath in a sigh. He didn’t know how long he had been holding it, but his lungs ached for air. “I see.”

“Can’t hurt to ask, though,” Armand said, and his smile then was one of profound and infinite mercy.


	7. Chapter 7

They slept all that day in each other’s arms. Santino opened the false wall in the back of his private trailer, and hauled his coffin out of the secret space there. There was enough room for the two of them to lie together comfortable, provided they were very close.

At first, Santino was afraid Armand might object, but he yielded easily to Santino’s embrace, leaning his head on his breast. Santino knew that he was listening to the throb of his heart, feeling every tiny variation in its beating. As he half-dozed with the coming of dawn, all his defenses lowered, he wondered what impressions Armand gathered from his drowsy mind.

Perhaps it was the glittering spires of Baghdad he saw: the universities, the libraries, the temples, the palaces. Or maybe he saw only the moment it had all been wrest away.

***

It was a week before Santino would leave the palace, and even then he would only go out at night, hidden behind a veil, cringing and mute at Saydan-Ayt’s side. He had a bewildered, half-mad notion that the monks had launched some retaliation against him for his disobedience, for if Santino’s fumbling attempts could call forth a demon as powerful as Saydan-Ayt, then there was no knowing what forces of the Lord might their combined prayers be able to summon.

He spent his days hidden in the inner rooms, venturing out into the gardens only under the watchful eye of the servants. The smallest things entranced him: the spice on a dish of food, the drape of his fine new clothes, the patterns of tiny tiles fitted into the walls. Even his own face, reflected in the polished silver mirror in his bedchamber, was a source of endless fascination for him. He had never seen it before, save when he was a very young child, and the surface of a puddle was still long enough for him to glimpse it.

Saydan-Ayt was in the habit of calling him beautiful, but the more Santino studied himself, the more the epithet embarrassed him. Yes, the trappings of beauty were there, in his fine high cheekbones and his long eyelashes, but his shaved head made his face look naked and raw. His cheeks were hollow, and in his eyes was constantly the specter of fear. He would work on it, he decided. Saydan-Ayt was always kind, and he asked Santino for nothing; let him at least have a pretty soul to take with him when he returned to Hell.

The evenings were his greatest joy. Saydan-Ayt would appear shortly after sunset, sometimes when the western sky still held the last of its gray glow. He always hunted first, and quickly, dispatching a victim within the first hour so that his hands would be warm and his face flushed and human when he came to Santino’s rooms.

It wasn’t until many years later that Santino appreciated what a sacrifice it must have been for Saydan-Ayt to rush the hunt – their most sacred and profound pleasure – night after night for the sake of his young lover. But in those days, nothing seemed to please him more than to see Santino dressed in silk, with kohl lining his eyes and an emerald ring upon his hand.

He had patience beyond any mortal patience. He was gentle, refined, and mannered. Santino knew these were all the Devil’s tricks, and that they had ensnared him completely, yet he wished for nothing but still stronger chains to bind him, to be sunk in still a deeper dungeon. He trembled with pleasure beneath Saydan-Ayt’s caresses, writhed at each touch of his hand like a dog before his master. And all the while, something was coming awake within him…

One Sabbath, Santino sat by an open window as evening fell, and the wind blew just right so that he could hear the bells of the cathedral chiming. They rang for a long time, and had just become silent when Saydan-Ayt appeared.

“Is it a holiday, Bey?” Santino asked.

“Some feast day, I suppose. Who can possibly keep track of them all, though?”

He moved to pull Santino into his arms, but then he hesitated. “Alas, you are unhappy here…”

Santino flinched. He had never meant for Saydan-Ayt to know of his anxieties. He had hidden them the best he could, and he could not see how they had been found out now. “I fear…”

“I understand,” Saydan-Ayt said. “It is no matter. We shall make for friendlier shores.”

He began preparations to leave for Baghdad that very night. It was to be some weeks before he could have a ship built and outfitted to his specifications, and he tried to fill them with distractions so that Santino would not be troubled. He opened his doors to musicians and poets and dancers, and he had merchants come to show their strangest wares. Santino was too timid to ask for anything, or even to show too much interest, but if some curiosity caught his eye, he was sure to find it waiting for him when he retired to his rooms.

There were nights, too, when the house was empty, and even the servants stayed away. On those evenings, Saydan-Ayt beckoned him out on the veranda that overlooked the harbor. He placed open books, parchment, and quills on table, and slowly, methodically, with infinite and untiring patience, taught Santino Arabic, Greek, algebra, the alchemic sciences. He had told Santino that the Saracen lands were a citadel of higher learning, and he seemed to have no shortage of knowledge, both sacred and profane. 

The cold ocean breezes stroked his hair, and he smelled the salt wind, tasted it on his tongue. Saydan-Ayt, a cool arm around his waist, pointed to the stars, naming them, showing Santino how he could find his way by them. The black starry night burned with them, millions of points of light blazing beyond the shadows of the ships on the water below. 

It was at that moment that Santino understood that it was not just pleasure that bound him to the demon; it was something that he had not felt for many years, not since he was a small child. It was love. The realization shocked him, and before Santino could check himself, his throat was choked with sobs. He was weeping, his face pressed against Saydan-Ayt’s shoulder. How strange to cry not from bitterness or terror, but rather from this overwhelming tenderness.

“What's wrong, Santino?” Saydan-Ayt said, running his fingers through Santino's growing hair. But the way he said it, it seemed as though he knew exactly what the matter was.

Santino raised his eyes. “Bey, when the contract is through and I am in Hell, will I still see you sometimes? All the torments I would endure, if only—“

Saydan-Ayt silenced him with a kiss. “You still think me a demon. Oh, my Santino, I should not have allowed you to persist in your superstitions. Dwell not on thoughts of the next world, but live in this one. You shall be in it longer than you know.”

He retired to the brocade couch on the veranda, reclined against the arm and drew Santino after him to rest against his chest. “Listen to me, my darling one. My nightingale. They stifled you so, for so many years; your body is nearly that of a man, but your heart is still a child’s. I can make you brilliant and beautiful, but you must trust me. No hell awaits you.”

For a long time, Santino could not answer. He could not imagine that what Saydan-Ayt said was true; it went against all that he had been taught. And yet, in his heart, he could not bear to think of him as a liar. 

At last, he raised himself on his elbows and looked down into Saydan-Ayt’s face. “Will you tell me who you really are? I love you, and nothing will change that. But I want to know the truth.”

Saydan-Ayt’s expression did not change, but his eyes seemed to shift focus so that he was looking deeper than he had before. “Yes, I can tell you what I know. Though I fear for you, Santino. I am afraid it will do little to answer your questions, or assuage your doubts.”

“I don’t care,” Santino replied, and Saydan-Ayt smiled faintly. He reached up to crook a hand behind Santino’s neck and drew him down once more. 

He pressed Santino’s head against his shoulder. “Then open yourself, like you did when the spirits visited you.”

Santino shuddered. He had never told Saydan-Ayt of his gift. He had thought those days over when he turned his back on God. All the same, he was not shocked or ashamed; it seemed right that Saydan-Ayt should know.

But what came to him as he lay in Saydan-Ayt’s arms was not a vision, but rather a kind of waking dream. Santino saw it all vividly, yet not once did he close his eyes or feel that he had been transported from the palace. The sky and sea beyond the balcony railing took on a flimsy and unreal quality, as if they were but a tapestry pulled hastily over the truth, and as Santino watched, they were flung back…

Before him, he saw a mighty city that had prospered and had fallen centuries before he was born. It was called Babylon, which was a name that he knew from his Scriptures, but, like so many things in those Books, he did not truly understand. He saw the city as it had been at the height of its power, and he saw the river that cleaved it in two. The beautiful gates with mosaics made of precious stones, and the towering temple upon a hill in the city center.

One of the priests in this temple was very young, and a nobleman by birth. Though he was handsome and wealthy, these things had not seduced him from the pious life, and he lived modestly, gave alms, and tended the altars of Ishtar.

Then, it came to pass that the city was threatened by Persian armies. The young priest had no love for the present king, but he knew his duty to his kinsmen. He sold some property and a good deal of his flocks, and so had enough to raise a garrison of mercenaries. He rode out at their head in gleaming armor, with a lance in his hand and a scimitar at his hip. Though he had not been trained in combat since his youth, he doubted neither his courage nor the patronage of his goddess.

They engaged the Persians at the river near Opis, and they were outnumbered and outmaneuvered. They came under fire from a battalion of archers; the young priest’s mercenaries were scattered, but still he fought. Until, at last, his horse dropped beneath him, and he managed to stagger on a few steps before he swooned.

His body was pierced by many arrows. His face was obscured by blood, and blood was clotted into his long black hair. Still, his armor gleamed, and so the Persians were quick to relieve him of it before they tossed him on the pile with the corpses. 

But he was not dead. All through the day he languished, too weak to free himself, to weak even to cry out for mercy. When night fell upon the plain, jackals came to scavenge amongst the corpses, and something else came with them.

It had no fear of either the beasts or the Persian sentries who had been assigned to watch over the bodies. It moved easily in the dark, though it was a moonless night, and it hauled the young priest out from under the heap of corpses as if he weighed nothing more than a child.

A wrist was pressed against his lips, and he tasted blood. And all the while the creature spoke to him without words, without even opening its mouth. _Drink… drink…_

The dream was over, and Santino raised himself again so that he might gaze down on Saydan-Ayt’s face. His expression was placid, unreadable. Did these memories no longer pain him?

“Naram Sin,” Santino whispered, and he thought he saw a flickering in Saydan-Ayt’s eyes. “That was your name. The sacred moon…”

“It was something they called me for a while, but it is my true name no more than Sinuhe was during my time in Egypt, or Sabyllos while I’ll dwelt amongst the Greeks. Or Saydan-Ayt is now, for that matter.”

“I still don’t understand,” Santino said. “What was it that saved you? A ghost, or a god?”

Saydan-Ayt brushed his fingers along Santino’s cheek. “If you can figure that out, then you’ll know more than I. It came out of Egypt to recruit foot soldiers. A war raged there that was ancient even when I was young. But I escaped it. I wanted no part in the affairs of monsters. I fled, but it did not pursue me. I know now how easily even the least of those creatures could have taken me, any time it so chose.”

Santino was quiet for a long while. He moved out of Saydan-Ayt’s arms, turning away a little so that he might think without the distraction of those beautiful eyes.

“You will make me like you are,” he said at last. “Won’t you?”

“Yes, in time.”

“But you are cursed. I have seen it. You may not eat, or drink. And the sun…” He was staring out over the ocean, watching the stars without seeing them. “Perhaps there are other things, too.”

“There are.” Saydan-Ayt sat up. “And so, before I do it, I want you to know all the pleasures of a mortal life. I will give them to you. I will lay them at your feet, because you were denied them for so long.”

Santino looked up at him. “You would have me corrupt my flesh?”

Saydan-Ayt only bent and kissed him, and Santino forgot his protests. “Oh, my Master…”

“All I have done has been out for love of you,” Saydan-Ayt said. His lips were against Santino’s temple; he was easing him onto his back. Santino allowed it all, bending easily beneath him. His legs parted so that Saydan-Ayt might settle between them.

They kissed then, and for once it was not Santino submitting as Saydan-Ayt drew him close, but the two of them coming together in one fluid motion. Saydan-Ayt’s lips were smooth as glass, even his tongue without texture. Santino knew it was strange even though he had never been kissed this way before. He whimpered against Saydan-Ayt’s mouth, his hand lifting to tangle in his hair. Black waves wove over and under his fingers, and Santino clutched them tightly, as if he did not dare loosen his grip for fear that their bodies would fly apart.

Saydan-Ayt was worrying the closures on Santino’s robes, untying them so that his clothes fell open. The night air was chilly, and Saydan-Ayt’s body gave off no warmth. Santino said nothing, but at the first shiver Saydan-Ayt swept him up and carried him inside.

“Do you want this?” he asked quietly as he lay Santino down on the bed.

“I know not the words for what I want,” Santino said. He leaned back against the cushions, his robes slipping off one shoulder. Saydan-Ayt’s gaze settled on his uncovered throat, and he bent over him once more.

Santino gasped, his body arching up to meet Saydan-Ayt as he descended. Saydan-Ayt left dry, icy kisses on his cheek, his jaw, and the side of his neck. Santino’s pulse was throbbing so hard he could feel it in his head, and Saydan-Ayt’s teeth scraped his throat but did not pierce the skin. Santino felt himself tensing in anticipation, but he didn’t know what he was waiting for.

Carefully, Saydan-Ayt undressed him, laying each piece of clothing aside. He stroked Santino’s bare chest, his hips, his thighs, and each touch sent shockwaves through him. His body, stifled and mortified for so long, began at last to understand all the parts of itself.

“Oh, my Master…” Santino whispered, draping his arms around Saydan-Ayt’s neck. “Tell me what you want me to do.”  
He felt a little tremor pass through Saydan-Ayt’s body, and he knew that he was laughing. He wrapped a cool hand around the shaft of Santino’s cock, and Santino gasped as it stiffened almost instantly in his grip.

Saydan-Ayt traced a slow circle around the tip of it with his thumb, smearing the bead of moisture that had collected there. Santino gritted his teeth, too embarrassed to cry out. He turned his face against Saydan-Ayt’s throat, burying his moans in the hair that spilled over his neck. Saydan-Ayt was stroking him slowly, whispering in his ear that he was beautiful, that he shouldn’t be ashamed. But Santino could only writhe beneath him and bite down on the shoulder of Saydan-Ayt’s tunic to stifle his cries, until he came with a jerk of his hips and his head went back, and his thoughts whirled as if he had been dealt a blow.  
His lips were parted a little when he looked back at Saydan-Ayt; he was still catching his breath. Saydan-Ayt was gazing down at him, and he seemed both pleased and amused.

“That didn’t take long,” he said, licking his fingers clean.

“Forgive me, Bey…” Santino stammered, and Saydan-Ayt bent to silence him with a kiss. Santino could taste a strange residue in his mouth, but it was not unpleasant to him. His body seemed more sensitive than before, and his skin tingled beneath every touch of Saydan-Ayt’s hands. Santino was aware for the first time of the shift of muscle beneath Saydan-Ayt’s clothing, the perfect shape of his limbs.

Saydan-Ayt kissed his ear, his teeth closing around the lobe, worrying it. “You want more, don’t you?”

Santino could only whimper in reply. Saydan-Ayt kissed a line down Santino’s throat, over his collarbone and chest. He paused long enough to catch a nipple in his mouth, and Santino gasped as his tongue made a slow circle around it. Then he was moving again, lower still. Past Santino’s navel, the little hollow between his hips. He nipped at his quivering thighs, and Santino jerked, his legs sliding further apart so that Saydan-Ayt could bend down between them.

“Hard again so quickly?” Saydan-Ayt said with a laugh. He ran the tip of one finger up the underside of Santino’s cock, then followed it immediately with his tongue.

A yelp of surprise escaped Santino’s throat. “God preserve me…”

“Don’t start that,” Saydan-Ayt said. He pressed two fingers to Santino’s lips. “Lick them.”

Santino slid his tongue over them obediently, slicking them with spit. He did not dare move, save for his eyes, which followed Saydan-Ayt’s hand as he drew it back and lowered it between Santino’s legs. He felt the tip of one finger pressed up against him, and then, slowly, entering him.

“Bey…” Santino gasped, horrified. But he did not dare tell him to stop. Saydan-Ayt worked him slowly, first with one finger, and then with two. Santino felt his body growing accustomed to the sensation, his muscles unclenching and his hips tilting up to allow Saydan-Ayt deeper. Then, all at once, Saydan-Ayt brushed against something small and secret within him. Santino gasped, and his cock twitched against his belly.

Saydan-Ayt made a small, contented noise low in his throat. He was still working his fingers inside Santino’s body, but he lowered his head now and took his cock into his mouth. He drew it in, all the way to the base, then slid back so that his lips only grazed the tip. Santino clamped one hand over his mouth to keep the sounds inside; the other fell on the back of Saydan-Ayt’s neck, but Santino did not even think to guide him. He only touched him there very lightly, feeling him move, feeling all the small muscles and tendons flex and release, amazed by each and every one of them.

He was trapped between the spear and the tomb, and he felt hollow, hollow. Saydan-Ayt drove him on, even though Santino was weeping now, trying to hide his tears behind his hand. Until, at last, his entire body twisted upward with release, and Santino saw all the stars of Heaven above, and all the fires of Hell below.

He might have lost his reason for a moment, because the next thing he knew, Saydan-Ayt was lying beside him, enfolding Santino in his arms and whispering all manner of sweet flatteries into his ear. As Santino recovered his senses, he realized that Saydan-Ayt’s hips were pressed against his thigh, and he could feel no stirring of arousal there. So, this too was denied him… Santino did not know what to make of it, but he kept the knowledge in his mind for later.

“I’m thirsty…” he said hoarsely, and Saydan-Ayt rose quickly to call for wine, while Santino pulled one of his robes over himself.

He sat up slowly, taking account of himself. He was sore and weak-limbed, but, even beyond that, he felt himself inexplicably but profoundly changed. Somewhere down inside, he thought, where he had locked his heart away long ago, something had been transformed.

And he thought, he might live a thousand years, and then a thousand more, and still not understand all the ways of the human soul.


	8. Chapter 8

_Jerusalem  
November, 1049_

Night fell on the Holy City, but the weeping did not cease. The creature that moved along the rooftops of the houses had heard it all day, a sorrow so profound that it had penetrated even into his sleep. Now, as he rushed toward the center of the city, there was scarcely a home he passed which did not exhale the smell of death from within.

He had not eaten for two days, not since the Plague had come. The smell of it nauseated him, and he was horrified that he might take a victim into his arms and sink his teeth in to that white and unmarred neck, only to taste contagion in the blood, like black rot at the heart of an apple. But hunger had begun to take its toll, and the creature was lightheaded and greatly fatigued. In the room below his feet, he heard the sobs of a very young child. She was the only living thing left in the house, and the creature knew that soon it would have to descend and take her. But, oh, to enter into that place of corpses...

Santino crouched down on the corner of the roof and squeezed his eyes shut. If it were only the hunger, then he could bear it. But how could he think? How could he even breathe, when all about him the world was ending?

He wished that he were in Baghdad now, that incomparable jewel amongst the world’s cities, and safe at his Master’s side. But Santino had heard the merchants talk: the Death was in Baghdad, too. It was in the great Constantinople, and it was general all over Europe. People said that the end had come, and Santino, who had not lost all of his mortal superstitions, sometimes believed it.

For if humankind was to pass from this earth, would not the demons soon follow? A horrible fate, to starve to death in a barren and desolate world…

If Saydan-Ayt were here, he would call such fears foolish. He would be very stern, and very kind, and Santino would feel embarrassed for having ever been worried. He longed to fly to his Master’s side, to rest in his arms until this crisis had passed… But he was nearly at the end of his journey now, and he felt compelled to push on.

At first, the Pilgrimage had seemed to him a curiosity and an adventure, but it occurred to him now that he must take the opportunity to genuinely pray. Perhaps God would listen, even to a demon.

Rallying his courage, Santino slipped over the edge of the roof and into the window of the house below. He moved so quickly, with such stealth, that the girl never even knew he was there. He tasted the sickness in her; she would not have lived anyway.

He felt his strength coming back, and his reason returning; he flung the body carelessly aside. His black robes trailed behind him as he went out the window, back to the rooftop in a single fluid movement. He was running then, so fast that his feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground. He felt the ancient blood that flowed through his veins, as if his Master were here with him now, pacing him step-for-step, whispering sweet encouragement in his ear: Fear not, Santino. Sickness cannot touch your body, and God has no dominion over your soul.

He neared the _Masjid Qubbat As-Sakhrah_ \- the Dome of the Rock. A wide plaza surrounded the building, and the flat octagonal roof that ringed the golden dome was some twenty yards from where the houses ended. Santino could have passed down to street level as he approached, but did not. He pushed off from the edge of the rooftop, and cleared the distance in a leap, landing on the roof of the shrine as softly as a cat. 

Let them all behold. Let the angels of the Lord see what they were up against.

Santino scrambled up to the rim that ringed the golden dome and opened a hatch in the panels. He slipped inside, and crouched there on the ledge, looking down at the gallery below. 

Even here, the Death had preceded him. He could smell it, wafting up from the lower chamber. The putrescence of people rotting even while they still breathed. Incense had been left burning in all the niches, but it could not cover up the stench. It only added a sickening-sweet edge to it that curdled Santino’s recent meal in his stomach.

There were three corpses against the wall directly below him. A fourth body was stretched out on a mat some distance away, but this one still clung to life. The pilgrims had all gone to the Mount of Olives, of course. Anything to take them out of the city for a while.

Santino dropped off the ledge, landing silently on the marble floor. The condemned man stirred a little, but did not wake. He was almost gone now, so far along that Santino did not think he heard or saw much of anything.

Lowering the veil from around his face, Santino made his way to the center of the shrine. Curiously, he touched the corner of the sacred Stone, playing his fingers along its edge. It felt no different than any other rock. There seemed nothing supernatural about it. And Santino wondered if God had not already left this place. Perhaps he was pulling out of the world he had created, rolling up all the carpets and shuttering all the windows, for he would not return…

He heard a voice in his ear.

Santino flinched, whipping around, but there was no one. Slowly, he relaxed. Only a spirit, he thought. Beneath his feet was the chamber where the voices of the dead could be heard; perhaps one had escaped long enough to bring its grievances above ground.

Once more, Santino set his hand on the stone, and he began to recite the holy words he had learned when he was young. He had made it only a few lines, when the voice came again, nearer now, and more distinct. It was the voice of a woman, and though it had spoken loudly, its words were somehow indistinct. A spirit, yes, Santino did not doubt it now. What else could explain how chillingly familiar a sound it was?

For the first time, Santino thought of how many countless souls he had sent on. He pictured them gathering in the Well below, drawn by his presence. If he descended, they would seize upon him with their skeletal fingers. They would scream their accusations in his ears and make him die all their deaths, one after another…

He shivered, and once he had begun it seemed that he could not stop. His teeth began to click together rapidly, and one of his fangs caught on his lower lip, nicked it, so that he tasted blood. His mouth was flooded with the metallic taste of it, and he knew at once that something was wrong. The cut in his mouth should have healed almost instantly, and yet the blood continued to run.

Santino reached up, knowing what he would find. Not believing it, dreading it, hating it; yet knowing all the same. He touched his face. There was blood pouring from his nose. A river of it, smeared on his cheeks, cascading over his mouth, dripping off the point of his chin…

“God…” Santino whispered. And then the world was filled with light.

A white staircase hung in the air above the Stone, and at the head of it, a glow so bright that Santino could not bear to look at it. He fell to his knees, and brought his hands up to cover his face. All those old half-remembered gestures of submission, they came back to him now.

He heard footsteps, and he raised his eyes to see a beautiful woman dressed in white. She descended the stairs, stepped off them, but not onto the Stone. Her shapely bare foot did not touch the ground, but rather hovered a few centimeters above it.

“Santino, do you know me?” she said.

He could make no reply. His voice was choked with tears. Many times she had spoken to him, but never had her voice been so clear. Each word was more precious to him than gold.

“Hast thou forgotten me, Santino?” she asked again. There was no accusation in her tone, only a kind of soft sadness. 

“My Lady…” Santino gasped. He was horrified; he would rather have endured the cruelest of tortures then make her sad.

Her face softened into a smile, and she reached down to touch his cheek. “My poor Santino. My poor, sweet boy.”

“You were gone for so long…”

“But I come now to bring you good news. Rise, and I shall tell you of your duty to the Lord.”

She drew him into her arms. He felt the swell of her breast against his chest, her long hair falling over her shoulders in lovely disarray. It brushed against his cheeks when she drew him close. Her arms encircled him then; her lips were against his ear, and he felt he would be able to hear nothing for the pounding of his heart. But when she whispered to him, he heard it with his soul.

Then she said to him, “The Lord need say only, ‘Be.’ And it is.”

Santino did not see her ascend. She was there one moment, and the next she was gone. And he was slowly opening his eyes, stretched out on his back on the floor of the shrine.

He did not try to move right away. He knew that he was hurt, that he must have thrashed wildly while caught in the throes of the vision. His limbs were broken, and the ribs all down one side were shattered. His face was streaked with gore from his bloodied nose. As he lay there on the stones and felt his body knitting itself back together, he thought of the message, and the truth that had been entrusted to him. He thought of the journey to Rome that lay ahead, of the army that he must raise. He thought of the Death, which had already made its home on those same Christian shores.

And he thought, too, of Saydan-Ayt, whom he knew that he must never see again.


	9. Chapter 9

_Night Island  
April, 1989_

Years later, after Santino was dead, Louis would think back sometimes to that night by the sea, when no moon had shown in the sky and the stars all hid behind the corona of lights from the city.

It was a little after midnight when Louis slipped out of the house and down to the beach. He had grown so tired of the endless noise. They were a large coven by modern standards, but their size seemed not to account for the racket they made. In every room, a television blaring or a stereo turned up all the way. Lestat in the parlor programming a synthesizer; Daniel and Jess in the game room playing _Street Fighter_ ; Pandora in her boudoir, staring at screens with a heroin addict’s eyes.

To see them all like that made Louis a little melancholy. As if they had been given immortality for no other reason than the shameless accumulation of possessions. As if they had come together like this to no other end then to immediately shut themselves away again.

No, he was not ready for that. Not another century of loneliness, made all the more unbearable because of the nearness of so many others, as if he might only stretch out his hand and banish that horrible solitude.

These days, Lestat did not seem half so witty as Louis remembered, and Armand was no longer ripe with mysteries. When they laughed, it was always cold and cynical. When they talked, it was of things, and people, and never of all those sacred keeps of the past. Louis knew that they had changed, that he had not, and such was the nature of things. He might keep going for a long while simply out of momentum, but he had no desire to remake himself again and again in the image of the ephemeral present.

It was easy to think such things out here, beneath the sky and so near to the sea. Here were things that were truly eternal.

Louis walked a while along the beach, feeling the sand shifting beneath his feet, hearing the waves, feeling that moment of unbearable anticipation between when one crested and when it broke. He did not know where he was going, only that he wanted to walk until Armand’s house was out of sight. He tried, at any rate, but the mansion was built on the highest point of Night Island; whether Armand had intended it that way or not, it was impossible to escape.

He had thought the beach would be deserted at this time of night, and so when he caught sight of a figure further down, gazing out over the water, Louis’ first instinct was to be annoyed. He checked it quickly; with so many mind readers around, he was always careful to not give in to his baser feelings. He went on, more slowly, trying to be considerate. But as he drew near and realized he recognized that lean and upright form silhouetted against the water, Louis hesitated.

“Yes?” Santino said. He did not turn his head, and his voice was not so loud. It barely carried at all. “It’s all right, Louis. Come closer.”

Louis swallowed hard. He had wanted to talk to Santino for some time now, but he had never found an opportune moment. Too many prying eyes, too many telepaths who had no reservations stealing into his thoughts. He went down towards the water. Santino seemed to stand right on the very edge of it, so that the waves lapped at his boots as they rolled in. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

It seemed a good thing to say. Santino was a very private soul. They saw him with Armand, or with Eric, or else they did not see him at all. Lestat had called him a snob, but that was just because he thought he had to have an opinion on everything.

“You didn’t,” Santino said, turning to face him. “What are you doing out here?”

“Nothing. Thinking.” He shrugged, and felt suddenly awkward and hopeless. “I wanted some air.”

Santino did not reply right away. Long enough for Louis to wonder if he found that answer insufficient somehow, or, worse still, he suspected that Louis was lying; but when he examined him more closely, he realized Santino was looking past him, at the arc of lights strung across a distant peninsula. 

"Some of my best memories are of the sea," Santino said thoughtfully. Then he looked down, at the water lapping his boots, the tiny grains of sand swirling around his ankles. "Tell me what's on your mind, Louis." 

The way he said it reminded Louis of his father-confessor of many years ago, that gentle paternal voice on the other side of the bronze grill. A plenitude of thoughts swirled through his head; questions, complaints, a desire to bare his soul, a desire to hide it deep; and it took him a moment to catch at the most important one, the one he had been curious about for so long. 

"Armand said you had visions. I read about it in the book." There was no need to explain which book that was.

“Did you come to talk to me about those books? I must admit, I haven’t read them.” The thought seemed to amuse him.

He looked good when he smiled like that. When he had first seen him, Louis had not thought Santino was particularly handsome. He was a little too grim, a little too mournful, and, no, he was no great beauty like Armand or Pandora. Set him next to one of them, and he would not shine. Cage him up amidst Armand’s gaudy toys or dress him in the silly clashing modern fashions, and those things would do him no justice. 

“I had a brother,” Louis said. “I mean, when I was alive. A younger brother…”

He paused to gather his thoughts. He’d told this story once before, and he had done a good enough job of it then. There was no reason he ought to stammer his way through it now. It was not painful to speak of such things.

“He saw them, too,” he went on at last. “He said the saints spoke to him. I did not believe him then. When I was a man, I mean. But my faith was lax. Perhaps…”

He trailed off, looking up into Santino’s eyes, hoping he would surmise the rest himself.

“Do you believe now?” Santino asked.

“I…” The answer stopped in his throat. Louis worked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, but he could not make the words come.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “But if one man can hear the dalliances of the Lord on earth, cannot another? Tell me, only tell me… was it peaceful for him? Did it cause him much pain? Tell me what you saw, Santino. So I can know…”

“You don’t want to know the things I’ve seen.”

And suddenly, Louis was laughing. It was a joyless sound, and it shook his entire body like a convulsion. “Why would you say that? What you’ve seen… Publish them in a book, and we will find out who wants to know the things you’ve seen. We’re very popular right now, Santino. And I’m sorry for it. I’m sorry I ever said a word.”

Just as abruptly, he quieted. Santino was watching him placidly; he had not moved or tried to speak. It embarrassed him, but Louis could not look away. His eyes stayed boldly fixed upon Santino’s perfect inscrutable face.

“Your brother had visions,” Santino said at last. “But not visitations.”

He turned away, looking out over the water. “To still believe such things, even in this day and age…”

“What do you mean?” Louis said quietly.

Santino sighed. “Your brother was not well. His mind was sick. Was he young?”

“Fifteen.”

“It usually begins earlier than that. I was only a child. The things I saw seemed real. They had depth and weight. They appeared to live and breathe. But I’ve read the literature since then, Louis. I’ve spoken to doctors. What your brother saw were nothing but clever illusions. The hallucinations of a besieged mind.”

Louis could find no words to answer. Of course, he had heard the diagnoses Santino was talking about. But those were other people’s sicknesses. His brother’s faith had been real…

“I am sorry, Louis,” Santino said quietly.

Louis turned away. There were tears in his eyes, and he didn’t want Santino to see them. He had not wept for his brother, not even when the sting of his death was still fresh. Could it be that these tears were for him? Oh, that he could believe that… Louis knew he cried for no one but himself. His shame, at looking so simple and credulous in front of a stranger.

He kept his back turned to Santino, and he stood very still, as if awaiting judgment. No doubt Santino had some platitude in store for him, or, worse still, a lecture. Yes, their kind did love their lectures so. Nothing excited them like the sound of their own voices.

A hand rested on his shoulder, a light and delicate touch. Louis was so surprised that he let a sob escape him, and he winced in embarrassment.

“Don’t cry,” Santino said gently. He turned Louis to face him, and he brushed away the beads of blood that had collected on his lashes. “Don’t cry. For we have all been fools. We have all been long out of the light.”

“I don’t understand,” Louis said. “How can you say that? After everything you did, how can you just change your mind?”

“I was wrong.”

“Wrong… to believe?”

“Wrong to try to make it mean anything. Our immortality. I was wrong to try to find an answer, for it is no question.”

Louis stared up at him with wide eyes, and Santino bent and kissed his mouth. Louis did not shrink from it, but he did not try to kiss him back either. His lips were still, unyielding, as if he didn’t know what to do.

“Don’t be sad for your brother,” Santino said. “He was happy. Never was one so deliriously joyous as he.”

“Do you mean that?”

Santino smiled, a quick flash of white teeth. “Would you care to join me for a swim, Louis?”

“I don’t have a suit,” he started to say, but Santino had already broken away. He was stripping out of his clothes, letting them fall like banners to the sand.

Louis looked away, but he could not keep his eyes averted for long. He glanced back in time to see Santino striding out into the water, lithe and long limbed. He was naked, but it did not seem to trouble him. He waded in to his waist, and then jack-knifed over and disappeared beneath a cresting wave.

With a quick glance up the beach to make sure that no one was coming, Louis quickly stripped off his clothes and went out to join him. The water was warm, and it refreshed him. He waded out until it was up to his thighs, and then realized that Santino had not yet surfaced. Louis felt panic, but only for a moment. It wasn’t as if Santino could have drowned, after all.

“Santino…” He half-turned, to see if he had headed back toward the beach, and then an arm emerged from the waves to wrap around his waist. Louis had not even time to cry out before he was dragged underwater.

He surfaced a moment later, coughing. Santino came up beside him; he pulled Louis close, and lifted the curtain of black hair out of his face. He was laughing like a madman, but, oh god, what a laugh he had. At that moment, Louis could have taken him for a mortal. 

This time, when he pulled him close, Louis yielded easily to his kisses.

A silver disk glittered in the hollow of Santino’s throat: a medal of St. Sebastian. Louis reached up and touched it, making it swing. He licked his lips and tasted the salt of the sea on them.

“This is so unexpected. Armand always said you were the Pope of our kind…”

“Ah, he was fond of that one. I think he made it up himself. I have not the heart to tell him that I’m more like the L. Ron Hubbard of our kind.”

Louis was so startled that for a moment he did not laugh at all. But when he began, it seemed he would not be able to stop. He was so delighted, so confused. It was rare enough for one of them to tell a joke, but a joke at the expense of his own reputation was almost unheard of.

Years later, when the news of Santino’s death reached him, Louis would remember first that Santino had made him laugh, and how inexplicably sad and grateful it had made him.

He was still chuckling when Santino caught hold of his hand and led him out to where the water was deeper. “Come with me. We’ll go to where we can no longer see the land. The stars will bring us back in one piece.”

***

Dawn was coming. The last of the stars had faded, and the sky was now so gray in the east that the towers of Armand’s mansion stood out starkly against it.

Still, Louis did not move from Santino’s arms.

They were stretched out on the sand where they had collapsed after returning from their swim. The night air had licked the moisture from their bodies, and their hair had dried in stiff ropes around their faces. And Louis was happy. He couldn’t help but be.

“I want you to come see me in the fall,” Santino said.

“Are you going away?”

“I think this is a good place. I think Armand means well… But Gabrielle will be leaving soon, it seems. Everyone expects her to be the first, and so I shall let her have the honor. But I ought not stay here long.”

“I’ll come visit you, if that’s what you want.”

“I have a place… I think you’ll like it. It’s in Santa Fe.”

Louis’ lips crooked into a smile. He was fitted so closely into the hollow of Santino’s shoulder, he knew that he must have felt it. “Why there?”

“Because no self-respecting vampire would ever be caught dead in a city like that. It’s not glamorous enough for them.”

Louis laughed, very softly, a warm exhalation of breath across Santino’s bare chest. “You like to be alone, don’t you?”

“I have a cat.”

“I hate cats,” Louis said.

“You’ll like this one.” Santino tipped Louis’ chin up and kissed him.

And months later, Louis would rent a car and leave Miami behind. He would drive through the South, and cross Texas, and then ascend into the high desert where Santino waited for him. He would stop in New Orleans, and Little Rock, and Austin, and El Paso. In every city that was big enough for a vampire bar, he would stay a while, and listen to the talk. 

He would hear Santino’s name quite often. The regulars would say he had come in to ask about an Ancient One, with a name that no one had heard, not even in legend, or in rumor. But they would say, too, that he never went away discouraged or disheartened. There was a kind of secretiveness about him, one of them would confide to him. As if he knew something that you didn’t. Kind of a snob, if you really want to know.

All these things would happen, and, no, they were not so far off, not impossible. It was no sin believing a miracle might yet come to pass, Louis thought. There was nothing wrong with hoping. Even if it was for something a little strange, a little simple. Something the rest of them might not quite understand.

~ The End


End file.
